The Tent
by gategirl324
Summary: He had abandoned her without so much as a backwards glance. Did he really think his return would be simple and painless? Harry might have been able to welcome him back into his life, but she could not accept him back into her heart.


Hermione huddled into a far corner of the tent. Even though she was alone while Harry was out gathering - no, she wasn't alone. Not anymore. She listened closely from her hiding spot and yes...yes, she could hear him rummaging about in the cupboards. It was stupid though; it wasn't as if there was anything to fill them.

She recessed further into her spot, behind the spare bedroom that they occasionally used to store things that were too cumbersome to be let loose in the beaded bag. Up until a few days ago, it had been filled with all of the things Ron had left behind. Occasionally, when she had been feeling particularly sentimental, she would just sit up here, breathing in his scent from his abandoned clothes, the sheets she had torn off of his empty bed in a fit of tears, and the blanket he'd brought from the Burrow that they would all curl up in on cold evenings.

She closed her eyes, still smelling his scent in the small isolated room. Neither she nor Harry had taken Ron to this room, choosing to only bring out some of his things. It was strange, but the room seemed a physical testament to how close she and Harry were, and how much closer they had become.

For the first couple of days after Ron had left, she and Harry had left his things untouched for the most part. When they had packed up to apparate, she couldn't bear to sort through his things, instead choosing to keep them within the tent when they folded it up. That was the afternoon that she had re-packed the beaded bag three times, trying to keep her mind off of the bundles of what she knew to be Ron's things. After that harrowing episode, she and Harry had meticulously gone through everything of Ron's in the bag and piled it all into the room in which she now found herself.

She knew for a fact that Harry had not gone in there once since that day, and he had most likely put the entire event from his head, just as he had tried to do with the memory of Ron completely. As good as Harry was at dwelling on things, he was just as good at putting things from his mind. Either that or he was much better at holding it all together than she was.

She, on the other hand, had felt like the world was crashing down around her. She couldn't help the tears that would spring up at odd moments, like mealtimes when she accidentally laid out three settings or when her eyes would unconsciously stray to the empty unmade bed that neither of them dared touch, at least until the day when she had practically torn it apart while failing to control her overflowing sobs. She had tried her very best to keep up pretenses, but she could tell that Harry was growing weary of her near constant breakdowns, and the subsequent tension that followed. Of course, Harry was far too polite to ever express his discomfort, but Hermione could tell that he was growing more and more uncomfortable and concerned. But while Harry was short tempered and snapped about nearly everything else in their current circumstances, her feelings regarding Ron and his abandonment was one thing he would not outwardly acknowledge, but it was wearing on him, on both of them, so she eventually found her way to this room and let herself be surrounded by everything that was left of Ron and she finally let herself cry her shattered heart out.

Whenever she came in here, a voice within her head came to life and as loud and clear as if it were on the radio. _You chose him. You chose him. You chose him. You chose h- _

And the strangest thing about the entire thing was that she could not for the life of her fathom ever being with Harry in a romantic capacity. She did love him, just in the way a sister loves a brother. Harry was the younger brother her parents had never given her. She had taken care of him since he was eleven years old, making sure that is homework was done, that he managed his schoolwork and Quiddich, that he realized how perfect he and Ginny were for each other, that he didn't do anything stupid, and that he didn't go and get himself killed when he inevitably did do something stupid.

How heartbreakingly ironic was it that their roles had been so perfectly reversed.

Rather than allow her thoughts to return to those dark days when it was a battle to even open her eyes in the morning, she reached for the soft thing brushing against her ankle. When she pulled it closer, she nearly burst into fresh sobs. How disturbingly fitting it was that it was Ron's blanket that she now held.

She brought a corner to her cheek, allowing the warm fibers to whisk her back to those many nights when she, Harry, and Ron has curled up in it, munching on toasted biscuits and trying to coax warmth into their fingers with one of her old bluebell fires. The blanket had been Ron's since childhood and had grown with him, resulting in a strangely harmonious amalgamation of various colors all of the same wool that Molly's famous jumpers were made of. By the time she had packed it before Bill and Fleur's wedding, it was gigantic enough for Harry to wrap it around his shoulders, Ron to tuck it in around his feet, and Hermione to completely swathe herself in it, leaving a good foot or two between each of them. Of course, she suspected that Molly had employed the use of more than a little magic, for when she had slipped it into her own bed on some especially cold nights it was the perfect size for only herself in her small cot.

"Hermione? Hermione!"

She hurriedly wrapped herself up and shrunk behind the boxes of extra linens. The logical part of her brain reasoned that Ron most likely didn't even know about this room and no reason to enter it anyway, but she wasn't feeling particularly logical at the moment. She hadn't been feeling very logical for quite a while.

"C'mon Hermione, I know you're in here somewhere. I heard you and Harry talking, I know you didn't go with him."

There was a silence as Hermione buried her nose into the Ron-scented wool. Perhaps, she reasoned, Ron would just give up if she remained silent.

"Please, Hermione, I...I really want to talk to you...I need to talk to you."

Oh, now he wants to talk, her mind snapped viciously. She went on a mental tirade, bothering to note for only a moment how very absurd she was acting, and taking another moment to declare that she did not care one bit.

"Hermione...please. I know you're in here. I know you don't want anyone to come in here, but please, please let me talk to you."

So he thought she wouldn't let anyone into this room? It was actually that she was the only one who still bothered to come in here, but let him think what he liked.

The logical voice in her head began to scold her for her idiotic immaturity.

"Look, you're being ridiculous. I'm coming in."

That was a fine way to warm her up to him. She closed her fingers around the comfortingly familiar wood of her wand, thinking bitterly that the only useful thing that had happened with Ron's return was Harry having a wand of his own, allowing her to keep her wand with her at all times.

Like now.

She continued to burrow into the blanket and took care to tuck herself neatly behind the boxes as the sound of Rom's footfalls reached her ears. She could hear him bustling about, searching for her among the piles of boxes and loose clothes.

"Seriously, Hermione?"

Hermione poked her head from within her blanket cocoon to meet Ron's blue eyes with her own brown ones.

"Go away," she attempted to retreat back into her wrappings.

"No."

"What?" His refusal surprised her. He was supposed to blush, sheepishly mutter an apology and leave her to her solitude.

"You heard me. No. You've been ignoring me and when you do acknowledge my existence you're a bitch. And I'm sick of it."

"You're sick of it?" Her voice was starting to climb octaves, "I'm being a bitch? You arsehole. You have no idea what it was like."

"I know I don't. Because you won't fucking talk to me!"

"Funny how you want to talk now. I was more than willing to talk that night, but you didn't want to hear it." It was surprisingly difficult to be frightening and commanding when one was huddling within a blanket in a corner behind a haphazard tower of boxes.

"Look, Hermione, I've already said I'm sorry. What more do you want from me?"

She turned away from the sound of his voice, burying her face into the soft fibers that smelled of him. She heard him say her name and repeat his question, but she didn't respond. She heard him swear under his breath and suddenly a draft of cold air swept over her as he yanked the blanket roughly off her.

"What the hell!" She snapped, glaring at him as she attempted to adjust to the freezing temperature. She hadn't been expecting to be outside so she hadn't put on more than one jumper, and was currently deeply regretting that decision as the frigid air cut through her like a knife.

"Now will you actually talk to me?" Ron spat, holding the blanket aloft as he looked down at her, huddled on the floor.

"Because now I _really_ want to talk to you." Hermione sneered, curling in on herself. Of course, it was her own fault that she was cold. She had conjured a particularly strong jam jar fire in her room the previous night, and had woken up sweating with her covers in a heap on the floor. She had been so overheated that she took no notice to the snow outside or the icy winter's air and had pulled on a light jumper and leggings, figuring that she would be staying in the tent all day.

"Oh shit, sorry!" Ron muttered when he caught sight of her violently shivering. He extended a hand to her, "Come outside, there's still a fire going."

"No." She tried to snap it at him, but all she could manage in her current state was to stammer it out between the loud chattering of her teeth that she was trying in vain to curb.

"You are bloody insane." Ron rolled his eyes and reached down and scooped her up with frightening ease. Complete and utter shock at his actions, worsening trembling from the cold, and bewildering confusion kept Hermione from screeching one of the many, many things that were running through her head and using every goddamn curse she knew to reduce Ron to a sniveling pulp.

He set her down in front of one of her own jam jar fires, which was crackling merrily in the middle of what the three of them had collectively deemed their sitting room, the dining room, and the room where basically everything happened. Hermione reached out her twitching fingers to the bright flames, sighing contently when some warmth was coaxed back into them.

Ron hesitantly approached her, which was rather ironic, Hermione felt, as he hadn't paused in the slightest when he had all but carried her about. He clumsily draped the blanket around her shoulders rather awkwardly. She didn't look up from the fire she was gazing into, but she did reach around and pulled the blanket closer, tucking her feet into it before returning her still pinkish fingers to the flames.

He noticed her gesture, but didn't say anything. Rather, he turned and busied himself with fixing some tea in their makeshift kitchen. He had absolutely no idea as to what he should do. Of course, he knew that the two of them needed to talk, he just did not know how in the world to start a conversation of that nature. It was not, after all, the easiest thing to just blurt out 'Hey, I'm sorry for being an arse, but my mind was all messed up because I was carrying around a bit of the soul of the most evil wizard in history, and I'm actually madly in love with you.'

That would probably not work out well if he just shouted that. Well, he was at the point where he was willing to do or try anything. He took a moment to imagine Hermione's response to an outburst like that. Perhaps he was not willing to do _anything_.

He could hear her sniffling slightly in the next room by the fire.

He returned to the tea.

While the water sat quietly boiling on the camp stove, he watched her from his covert vantage point. He could see her back, wrapped in his childhood blanket, reaching her red raw fingers to the flickering flames.

He didn't know what to say to her. There was a voice in the back of his head screaming for him to just go up and kiss her and tell her how very sorry he was and how much he loved her, but like every other time he acknowledged the voice, he silenced it.

That voice, that goddamn voice, had been just a mere whisper in his mind a few years ago. It had started as a misplaced emotion when he was fourteen and he was seeing her, twirling blissfully in the arms of another. In the years that followed, it had metaphorically materialized and had been screeching for him to take action.

Of course, he never listened.

He usually ended up doing the exact opposite of what his mind told in explicitly to do and only infuriated her further. He could not for the life of him fathom, rationalize, or explain why he did such absolutely idiotic things, he only accepted that he did.

Whenever he was around her, it was as if his thoughts were stuck in one of the swamps behind his home, unable to move, or progress. His entire body went into a state of heighten awareness and anxiousness and apparent stupidity. Yet, at the same time it was as if everything he did, everything he said took on another meaning, and he had no idea whatsoever about how to conduct himself.

That very phenomenon was occurring at that very moment as he watched her. A million different scenarios were running through his head. He could just walk forward, pull her to her feet and kiss her with all the pent-up emotions he had been carrying around with him for the past few months.

What Ron didn't know was that Hermione would have loved him to do precisely that, and that she had been considering something similar for some time.

But neither of them acted on their imaginings.

Rather, Ron fixed their tea once the kettle began to squeal and brought it with him as he joined her by the flames. They both sat there, not speaking a word, simply drinking their tea and watching the tongues of fire licking at the cold air.

"I really am sorry." He said, not looking up from his cup.

"I know." She responded, splaying her fingers out on the warm wool.

He finally tore his gaze from the depths of his tea and was shocked to see tears in her eyes when she pulled her gaze from the flames. Reaching out, he grasped her hand and squeezed it, registering shock at how skinny even her fingers had become in the months since they had been on the run.

"So...are we okay?" Ron asked tentatively, not wanting to break the silence but practically bursting with doubt.

Hermione didn't say anything for a moment, but fixed her gaze upon their still-clasped hands. When she remained silent, he grew more worried and as the minutes drew longer. He watched her pensive features, all the while internally chastising himself for asking her the question. It was clearly too much too soon, and they hadn't actually talked.

"Hermione, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"It's fine. We're not okay. Not yet." She looked up at him, "But we'll be okay."

Ron let out a sigh of relief. It was the best he could hope for, better than he could hope for.

And that was okay.


End file.
